If you can not find them, or if they are not available in your country or region, please contact me at carno.polo@gmail.com.

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1980: the Cold War between capitalist West and socialist East is in full swing. Tensions are high but, at the academic level, some channels of useful exchange remain open. The author and two classmates would join one such program linking a leading American university and its counterpart in Poland. They travel to Warsaw here by car and, in addition to attending classes, travel far and wide within the country as well as to several of the neighbors in the socialist bloc where the Soviet Union called all the shots. They drive across the USSR and visit the Berlin Wall, the symbol of the division of Europe. Throughout, Marco took detailed notes of what they saw and heard.

Almost four decades later, the East-West division of Europe is gone. Marco recently found his diary and decided to publish an expanded version of it. His written notes from 1980 have been enriched with descriptions and analyses of historical events that will help the reader see his personal experience in a more significant cultural, social, political and economic context.

The author hopes this real life story will help younger generations, who did not live through the Cold War, better appreciate the blessing of living in a European continent that is immensely more open, rich and free than it was then.
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Tales from the many trips to the Maldives of the author. Avoiding the tourist resorts, he visited remote villages, where tradition is combined with innovation and technology, meeting local people and trying to understand their culture. Always island hopping by boat, he went from postcard perfect uninhabited islands and through the streets of the bustling capital Malé, in its hidden corners often overlooked by tourism. In dozens of dives, he witnessed the richness of wildlife and the sparkling colors of these seas.

But the islands are facing rapid changes and serious problems, and they are not always the paradise they seem. The Maldives are at a turning point, with political, economic and environmental changes that pose difficult challenges to the government and to the nation.

The book is completed by an analytical index, a chronology of the Maldivian history and a bibliography. The kindle book includes 36 color photographs while the paperback contains 11 B&W photos.
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This book examines the development of command and control systems for nuclear weapons in NATO Europe during the Cold War. This is a reprint of his book originally published in 1993.

The United States and Europe had for a long time stressed different aspects of their common concern for the control of nuclear forces. The US mostly feared a failure of negative control, ie the possibility of accidental or inadvertent use. The Europeans shared this concern but emphasized the need for reliable positive control of the deterrent, ie the assurance that it would function as planned in an emergency. Unsurprisingly, American views prevailed, and moved the UK and France to develop their own national deterrent.

Written at the end of the cold war, this book argued for the creation of a European deterrent, integrated with NATO, on the basis of the French and UK forces.

Since then, these two countries have repeatedly discussed this issue, and that is why, twenty-five years after it was written, the conclusions of this book are still relevant for current policy. Renewed US unilateralism after the election of president Trump reinforces the notion that in the nuclear weapons domain, as in others, the Europeans should take more responsibility.

The author holds a PhD in Defense Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a retired member of the international staff at NATO Headquarters.